Chapter 3

6 hours later, the boys arrived at their friend Alex's apartment, where the gathering was being held. Its a small-ish housewarming party, filled with 20 somethings in various states of intoxication laughing and conversing. Music leaked out of the party and into the night air as Alex opened the door, greeting his new arrivals. "Hey! Glad you guys could make it." As they enter the house, exchanging greetings, his eyes land on Phil. "You're the new roomate, Phil, right? I'm Alex, its nice to meet you." Phil shakes Alex's hand, giving a small smile "Nice to meet you too. Your place is really nice!" "Ha, thanks, I just moved in though, so there still isn't a lot of furniture", Alex replies. "It's alright, it already looks pretty good already", Dan comments. It is then that Carrie, Alex's girlfriend walks up to the group "Hey you goof", Carrie says, leaning into Alex's side as Alex wraps his arm around her. She turns to see the new arrivals, her face lighting up as she recognizes them. "Dan, Chris, PJ! Nice to see you guys!" She smiles brightly at Phil "You must be Phil, I'm Carrie its nice to meet you" Phil smiles back "Nice to meet you too." Carrie looks up at Alex. "We're starting a new game of cards, come back" "Okay sweetie, I'll be right there." Alex says, kissing the top of Carrie's head. He looks at the rest of them. "Wanna join?" "Maybe later, we'll just hang out here for a bit." PJ replies, "Alright, but we have to catch up later, yeah?" Alex says. He looks at Phil, "We'll have to get to know each other better soon" "Yeah of course" Phil says with a smile. "I know how crazy these guys can get, don't let them get to you" Carrie adds. "Hey we're not that bad" Chris protests. Carrie and Alex laugh in response, leaning into each other. Dan looked on with sadness. Alex and Carrie were pretty much perfect for each other, anyone could see that. He remembered when he and Abby were like that. He shook his head. No, he promised himself he wasn't going to dwell on it. he was over her now, it was time to move on. He follows the rest of them further into the party, picking up a drink to distract him from his depressing thoughts.

Some time later, the group has settled in and are chatting with some friends who live further down the block. Dan nods along with what Chris and PJ are saying, standing awkwardly and sipping his drink. He notices Phil standing nearby, standing just as awkwardly doing the same thing. Phil looks up and notices this as well. They laugh at each other. "Guess you're just as bad at social interaction as I am." Dan comments. "Yeah, most times I'd rather just sit at home and watch movies all day" Dan laughs same. They smile at each other. They actually had a lot in common, Dan was glad to find someone he could relate to and hoped they'd be great friends. Suddenly Chris nudges Phil in the side "Oooh, she's pretty cute, you should try talking to her." He points out a girl talking with some friends nearby. The girl was in her mid 20's with long brown air and bright hazel eyes. Phil shuffles nervously. "I'm not sure if I'm ready" "You'll be fine dude" Dan smiles reassuringly. "Just be natural and do what we talked about" Phil nods. Phil takes a deep breath and approaches the girl nervously;. She really is pretty, he hoped he wouldn't mess things up too badly with her. Okay, Phil, you can do this., Phil says to himself.

The girl is standing next to the kitchen counter, sipping a beer. Her friends have just left her and she is looking around bored. Phil walks up to her, smiling shyly. "Hey..." The girl looks up and smiles "Hey" "So how's it hanging cutie?" Phil says awkwardly, leaning against the kitchen counter in what he hoped was a seductive way. THe boys groan under their breath. "This is going to be hard." Chris sighed. Luckily the girl seemed to be amused by Phil'a cheesiness. She giggled. "I like your bat shirt. Its neat" She smiles up at him and they continue to talk and flirt, asking about each other's lives and getting to know more about each other. "Looks like its going well" PJ comments. "Yeah, I'm proud of our buddy. Was a little worried there for a while that he'd just keep using cheesy pickup lines", Dan chuckled.

The girl walks out the door, waving goodbye to Phil. "See you tomorrow!" Phil waves back. He giddly skips back over to his roommates, his face glowing with excitement. "We're going out to dinner tomorrow night" "Awesome!" The boys cheer. "Proud of you, dude" Chris praises "Guess we'll both have dates tomorrow night. Met a girl while you two were talking and she invited us to a party tomorrow." "Awesome, so we all have something good happening!." Phil chuckles. Phil spins in circles, still on his high. Dan smiles at his enthusiasm. He had to admit the boy was kind of cute when he did things like that. However he then looks down at his pants and starts to cringe "Oh god, was his zipper undone the whole time you were talking to her?" Dan groans. Phil looks down and blushes, turning his back to the group to quickly pull the zipper up on his pants. "Why does that keep happening?" PHil moans, head in his hands. He was thankful she at least agreed to go out with him, he hoped this would turn out better than his last relationship.


So that's chapter 3! Sorry for the long delay, I've been busy with school the past few weeks and may be able to get another chapter up before the end of break! Let me know what you thought!